Roundup: Taking down the Mystics' attendance banners

Leonsis' reasoning is simple: "The only banners we should display revolve around winning a division or conference or league championship."

There's a roundup of commentaries after the jump but we also wanted to ask you, Mystics fans, what you think of the move. Are you glad that the space in the rafters will be reserved for championships? Or would you rather see the attendance banners stay up?

*D.C. Sports Bog: "Maybe if D.C. teams were regularly winning titles, no one would care. If the attendance banners were just accents to all the conference and division titles, maybe you could overlook it. But no Verizon Center tenant has won a league championship since the building opened, and that made the banners a regular punchline for visiting fans and visiting writers -- the Montreal Gazette's Canadiens writer made mention of the banners this spring. And they were especially grating to the sardonic home fans."

*DC BasketCases: "The about-to-be-retired Attendance Banners really weren't about honoring the team . . . they were about honoring the fans whose loyalty, whose enthusiasm, and whose hard-earned money spent on tickets, concessions and team gear helped the Mystics (and the WNBA) survive.

"Those banners honored the fans of a hapless team who kept coming to games, year after year, who supported their team through all the coaching changes, player dramas, and, yes, downright dismal performances on the court. They honored the season ticketholders who suffered through that inaugural season of 1998 when the Mystics went 3 and 27, yet still renewed their tickets."

The BasketCases actually said they agree with Ted that the banners should go. The above quote might give people a different impression. The BCs just want this part of Mystics history preserved, not lost to the trashbin.

I agree that the banners should come down. I have attended 90 percent of the games since the Mystics began playing and it has always been clear to me that the attendance figures have been very much inflated from reality. I worry now that the reduced attendance in the past few years will destroy the economic viability of the franchise as other teams have closed down in the past few years.